Bill Tieleman is one of BC's best known communicators, political commentators and strategists.
Bill writes a politics column Tuesdays in 24 Hours newspaper and The Tyee online magazine.
Bill has been Communications Director in the B.C. Premier's Office and at the BC Federation of Labour.
Bill owns West Star Communications, a consulting firm providing strategy and communication services for labour, business, non-profits and government.

A group of dedicated National Hockey League fans
won't cry in their beer if team owners lock out their players. They are
planning to take billionaire owners into the boards very hard.

How? By launching a consumer boycott of NHL team
owners' other businesses -- including breweries and restaurant chains -- to
penalize them for high sticking fans.

The website was
set up along with a Facebook page
and Twitter account to let fans take things into their own hands and wallets as
a potentially lengthy lockout starts Sept. 15.

Rebellion of the '10,000aires'

The You Have Two Weeks campaign -- named because it
was launched two weeks before the planned lockout -- has detailed NHL owners'
other holdings as targets.

Those include high profile B.C. businesses like
Denny's Restaurants, Moxies' Classic Grill, the Shark Club and Sandman Hotels
-- all ventures of Dallas Stars' owner Tom Gaglardi,
while Vancouver Canucks' owner Francesco Aquilini and his family's development
empire is also listed.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't certain NHL club owners have financial problems in the past years? North Stars moved to Dallas because the tickets were too cheap and the franchise wasn't profitable. When the team relocated, it was popular for a while between 1998 and 2000 when they won the Cup. I remember going to a game there once and the visit was around 4500 people (regular season). My point is, not all the teams in the league have their arenas sold out. Can you blame the management? Maybe, but the truth is, if you want to save the league, you have to make some steps how to avoid certain teams from constantly fearing going bankrupt. Now, the article in 24H said that the players would not get paid. Wrong! Every NHLer would get a very generous invite from European team to play the season there, just like it was back in 2005 when all the big guns played in Europe getting not only decent paychecks, but also good experience playing on wider rinks. Plus, many of them had a chance to be close to their families. There are players in NHL who make absurd amounts of money. Fans are, however, angry at owners of the clubs because they see corporate incentives behind the whole thing. Yes, some of the owners would tap dance getting a bigger chunk of the pie from the players' salaries, but there are owners who simply want have that piece of mind and be able to compete with teams where such problems don't exist. I normally hold very liberal views, but in this case I'm on the other side saying it is the players who should budge an inch.

I think we should boycott any company that advertises during any NHL games when they come back. If companies think their products will be boycotted they will pull their ads. In turn the networks won't give the lucrative tv deals to the NHL. This will cripple the greedy owners and players. I'm going to cancel my season ticket plan, sit at home enjoying free hockey while writing down each product I see during the breaks and then boycotting them.

As to the commenter above who cited the problems with the North Stars when they moved to Dallas, as a former Winnipegger I remember back before the Jets, maybe half of the crowd in the Twin Cities were Manitobans who commuted to home games. Thus when the Jets became an NHL team the Stars lost a big part of their fan base, I would figure, though I wasn't in Manitoba by then.

Then when the Jets were sent to the desert to die and become a welfare case, even extracting taxpayer dollars from Glendale (the suburban home of the Coyotes and NBA Sun), when all of Arizona (especially real estate which provides these extorted funds from non-hockey fans)is a ground zero for the housing crash. For more info on this see my 2010 piece What's Wrong with Arizona

Also once the coyotes went to die in the desert the Twin Cities got hockey back and voila the Wild seem to be doing alright. The American teams that do best are located where people have actual winter, or where many Canadian either live, or spend their winters like L.A. (the home of more Canadian ex-pats than anywhere) or Florida - I guess perhaps the many Canadians who winter in the desert in travel trailers aren't prosperous enough to take in Coyote games, except perhaps when their fav Canadian team is in town.

Perhaps the NHL should consider, eek, "Socialism" like that that allows the NFL to not only be a major money machine, but has revenue sharing among the teams that allows a small market team like Green Bay to not only be competitive but win the Super Bowl. When's the last time a small market team won the World Series?

The real answer though to the NHL lockout lies with Lisa Raitt. Since the players are willing and anxious to play under the existing contract as long as negotiations continues, it behooves Lisa Raitt to ORDER the owners of the seven Canadian teams to end the lockout and have a season between the Canadian teams (and Buffalo if they want to, being a depressed community and happy seller of tickets to many Canadian cross border fans). Obviously the lack of NHL hockey has a negative effect on the "holy economy" at least as great as having one airline grounded.

By the way, this is a battle between Billionaires (the owners) and mere Millionaires (the players) and the players gave up more than an inch last time, and this time around the owners want a few yards and aren't willing to budge at all. It is obvious the owners (except in cities that shouldn't even have a team due to lack of interest in Hockey) aren't hurtin' all that bad by simply looking at the last minute multi-million dollar contracts inked recently - before midnight EDT last Saturday

I really don't think a boycott will actually hurt anyone except the ones that need the games to make a living certainly not the billionaire players/owners. I would support a campagin where the corportate tickets holders would donate one game to allow the kids to attend a NHL game. At current pricing a father and son can't hope to attend a NHL game. This way someone that actually appreciates hockey would get to see a game.

Bill Tieleman and Senator Larry Campbell, former Vancouver mayor

Jim Sinclair, Cindy Oliver, Ken Georgetti and Bill Tieleman

Bill Tieleman's coverage of the Basi-Virk/BC Legislature Raid Case praised by other journalists:

"This outstanding piece of journalism, in The Tyee, is the work of a journalist who has been deeply involved with this issue from the start and this article should be passed on as far and wide as possible."

"Bill Tieleman from 24 hours . . . . If you want to know about this trial and about this case, you have to read his blog – I mean, that’s just all there is to it – it’s required reading if you want to understand the BC Legislature Raid situation."

- Mike Smyth, columnist, The Province

"The Basi-Virk case....you’ve probably sat through more of these hearings and gone through more of the files and written about it than any other journalist in the province."

- Bill Good, host, The Bill Good Show, CKNW/Corus Radio Network

"Tieleman ...has done a first-rate job covering the trial."

- Paul Willcocks, columnist, the Victoria Times-Colonist

"Tieleman, who marries a considerable journalistic talent with one of the smartest political minds in the province, has been writing more web-exclusive material. And his coverage of the Basi-Virk trial is a must-read -- whether you're an insider or an outsider."

"24 Hours, the Vancouver paper that has been leading the coverage, as well as the hints of conspiracy in B.C."

- Norman Spector, columnist, Globe and Mail

"Although the major media in this circumstance has been giving the case significant coverage, Tieleman's reports on his blog have been outstanding.

The entire cut and thrust of legal wrangling and arguments has been covered and is accompanied by considered analysis.....His blog site coverage of the Basi-Virk trial is the most in depth treatment of one of British Columbia's biggest political scandals."

- Bill Bell, columnist, The North Shore News

"Mr. Tieleman has published online dispatches which, freed from the limitations of newsprint space or broadcast time, can run at length. They also remain available for those select readers who become obsessed with a case also known as Railgate.....

In another bizarre twist to a story with no shortage of them, Mr. Tieleman went to work one day in December only to discover his office had been ransacked. Bookcases had been tipped over and papers strewn, but nothing was missing.

To top it off, a press kit for the self-published novel The Raid, written by a retired military officer in Metchosin and featuring on its cover a photograph from the 2003 police raid, had been left in a conspicuous place."

- Tom Hawthorn, columnist, The Globe and Mail

Nobody has followed the Basi-Virk affair over its past five years with greater diligence than local journalist, Bill Tieleman....Tieleman deserves our thanks, a fistful of journalism awards and some merit citation for citizenship.